Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Wikileaks

Just some interesting links regarding Wikileaks. (This post is occasionally updated, both for content and formatting. I switched the format so the most recent is at the top so that one might know if updates have occurred).

(26) US military forces engaged in a heinous war crime, executing a handcuffed family, including the mother and infant children. Subsequently the home where the crime occurred was bombed by US forces, presumably to cover up the crime.

(25)The Obama administration intervened to prevent Haitians from increasing their minimum wage from 26 cents/hr to 71 cents/hr. This action was on behalf of contractors for Hanes and Levi-Strauss.

(24) Israel's aim with the Gaza blockade is to keep Gaza "functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis." This according to leaked Wilileaks cables. This is not entirely new information. For instance Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said in 2006 that the goal was to put Palestinians on a diet. This behavior is part of a strategy that has been in place for a while. Moshe Dayan was Israel's Minister of Defense in 1967. After the war he said that the Palestinians should be told "that we have no solution, that you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave -- and we will see where this process leads... In five years we may have 200,000 less people -- and that is a matter of enormous importance."

(22) US diplomats basically act like marketing agents for Boeing in their efforts to boost sales against their rival, Airbus. Fascinating details in the NY Times here. King Abdullah clearly hints that his country would be very interested to purchase from Boeing rather than Airbus and oh, by the way, if the King's private jet were to be outfitted much like Air Force One that would be really cool. Yes, they have decided to purchase Boeing and yes, King Abdullah's plane is being upgraded. The details of the upgrade can't be revealed for security reasons.

(21) If you've seen the movie "The Kite Runner" you know that in Afghanistan there is a cultural behavior that amounts to rape of young boys. Typically the children are between the age of 5 and 15. The Taliban aggressively attempted to put it down, but with the Taliban out of power it's on the rise again, just as drug production is. We learned a year and a half ago from the Washington Post that DynCorp, which trains Afghan police and is under US contract, threw a party in Afghanistan "hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance". This was not the first time DynCorp has been involved in such things. Now thanks to Wikileaks we discover some behind the scenes info. When an Afghan diplomat discovered that someone from the media was present during the dance he panicked and contacted the US embassy. He wanted to communicate to the journalist that publishing the story would "endanger lives." Instead the diplomats urged that nothing be done in order to prevent the story from becoming a big deal. As the guardian notes, the strategy appears to have worked, culminating in the Washington Post story, which was largely a whitewash. The headline is "Amid Review, DynCorp Bolsters Ethics Practices." The Afghan diplomat that attempted to suppress the story resigned back in June.

(19) President Saleh of Yemen told General Patreaus that he would lie to the people of Yemen and tell them that the bombs falling on them in fact were from his government, not from the United States. He is trying to create the impression that he is not a US lackey. Not only did Saleh lie to Yemeni's but the State Department lied to Americans as well as Greenwald documents.

(12) Documents related to Kaupthing Bank in Iceland have revealed massive loans on behalf of the bank's owners just prior to the collapse. These revelations may lead to criminal prosecutions. In response Iceland has enacted laws to protect journalists attempting to expose corruption.

(4) "American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world" about the Iraq war as it was prosecuted, a conclusion the Post's own former Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote was proven by the WikiLeaks documents;

(1) Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.

4 comments:

What Bradley Manning did is a crime. What Assange did is not a crime. It's only a crime to disclose classified information if you have a security clearance. If you come in to possession of secret information but don't have a security clearance you aren't obligated to keep it confidential.

These recent disclosures by Wikileaks in fact were first published by the NY Times. So if what Wikileaks did was a crime what the NY Times did would also be a crime.

For the record, even though I am undecided on whether Wikileaks is a net good or net bad (and currently, I am leaning towards the bad argument) I do think that what the US is doing with Assange is troublesome.

Like it or not, this SHOULD fall within the United States first ammendment laws (remember those laws Jon? Wasn't it you who just a few months ago said they might not be all that beneficial???).

In other words, you can get mad all you want but he shouldn't be TRIED. Maybe the person who leaked them should, or if he tried to sell them to an enemy country...but not for simply publishing them. In that sense he is really no different than the media.

With that said, I do think that most of the media and government officials are after him not necessarily because of some grand conspiracy to keep the country in favor of Israel, or any other such nonsense. But a simple belief that this does harm our foreign policy initiatives. And being that were currently at war in two countries, this is a top concern. And rightfully should be.

About me

Raised as an evangelical, biblical inerrantist and political right winger I became an atheist and finally left winger later in life. I love to argue since I believe argument is what helped turn my former false beliefs into true ones, and that's been good for me. This blog is kind of a place for me to collect resources that justify my beliefs and also to continue to have arguments that refine and improve my views.